As part of the preparation work for a major new project – the placing online of some 25-30 years of my journalist note books, transcripts and other musings – I noticed that on my travels I had often copied down inscriptions on tablets, or stele, of folks very long past.

These ranged from ancient Mesopotamia to Hittite Anatolia, Lebanon to Cyprus, Greece to Sharjah, and many more places besides.

I think I was impressed by their age and their specificity – they were references to particular people by particular people who had once been as animated and real as myself, as the others around me in the museums, ruined temples and ancient cities in which I found them. Sometimes, there was an odd wisdom to them, too, as well as a dramatic register that spoke of other times and mores.

I remember, too, the extraordinary sense of excitement when I first understood a word on one – was able to read the Ancient Greek script and know what it meant: Thalassa, sea. It was a world reaching out across the millennia, a moment of communication, even if delivered to a random barbarian thousands of years after being sent.

Some further thoughts on all this later, but for now, let us begin, in no particular order. New ones to be added as encountered.

Mid 4th Century BC, Rhodes, Kizil Tepe, Attic

“If there is a highest praise in the world befitting a woman, with this dead Kalliarista, daughter of Phileratos, for wisdom and virtue, for this reason her husband Damocles set up this stele as a memorial of love, and may a benevolent spirit follow him for the rest of his life.”

Interesting that Damocles asks for a benevolent spirit to follow him, not Kalliarista in some afterlife. It is for the benefit of the living, not the dead. Also note the conditionality regarding women…

Sarcophagus, Byblos, 4th century

“In this coffin lie I, Batnoam, mother of King Ozbaal, King of Byblos, son of Paltibaal, priest of the Lady, in a robe and with a tiara on my head and a gold leaf on my mouth, as was the custom with the royal ladies who were before me.”

Funereal stele, Sidon, Hellenistic period

“Good Robia, who never harmed anyone, farewell.”

Tablet, Byblos, 10th century BC

“To Zalaya, the man of Damascus! So speaks the king. I am sending you this tablet, my message to you. In addition, send me the Hapiru… about whom I have already written in these words: ‘I will give them the cities of the Kasa where they can live instead of those I have deported.’

“Also know that the king is in good health as the sun in the heavens. His troops and his chariots are numerous, from the Upper Country until the Lower Country, from the Levant to the sunset, all is for the best.”

Sarcophagus of Ahiram, King of Byblos, 10th century BC

“Now, if a king among kings, or a governor among governors, or a commander of an army should come up against Byblos and uncover this coffin, may the sceptre of his rule be torn away, may the throne of his kingdom be overturned and may peace flee from Byblos. And as for him, may his inscription be effaced.”

Stele of Rameses II, Tyre, 13th century BC

“Rameses II slaughters the enemies of Egypt before the war god Ré-Hor-akhty.”

Inscription, Ayos Nikolaos church, Mustafapaşa village, Capadoccia

“I am a church of the most august couple Constantine and Helen, in the times of Sultan Ahmet I I was entirely built.”